Around Us 06-17-11

By the Herald

Published 1:00 pm, Friday, June 17, 2011

AUSTIN - State Sen. Robert Duncan made the best 10 legislators list in Texas Monthly magazine, the most-watched ranking in Austin.

Since 1973, Texas Monthly has ranked what it considers the best 10 and worst 10 among all 181 legislators. For Duncan, R-Lubbock, this is the fifth time in the last six sessions he has made the best 10 list.

"It's always nice to be recognized," said Duncan, chairman of the Senate State Affairs Committee and a key player in crafting the state budget at a time when the Legislature is tackling a $27 billion revenue shortfall.

No other lawmaker from the Panhandle/South Plains delegation made it on either list.

The magazine's best 10 list includes seven Republicans and three Democrats.

In the worst 10 list, all are Republicans. It includes Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. - Amarillo Globe-News

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LUBBOCK - Former Lubbock County prosecutor John Young is in legal trouble again after reportedly pulling a gun on a police officer in Sweetwater.

Young resigned from the Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney's Office in 1990 after being involved in a drunken-driving incident that killed a 40-year-old woman. The woman's autopsy played a role in the investigation into and subsequent downfall of the county's former forensic pathologist Ralph Erdmann and district attorney Travis Ware.

Young, 51, has practiced law in Sweetwater since 1990. Adelle Valdez, Young's legal secretary, said her employer had no comment regarding his arrest.

Sweetwater Police officer Dan Heine, while on duty, had stopped by the residence where he was staying with his ex-wife, Sweetwater Police Chief Jim Kelley said. Heine's ex-wife had a "personal relationship," with Young, Kelley said. He said she also had been employed by Young and at one point had been a client of Young's.

Heine recognized Young's car parked behind the back fence and went to confront him, Kelley said. Young pulled a 9 mm handgun from behind his back and stuck it in Heine's face, the chief said.

The officer knocked the gun away and a struggle ensued before another officer arrived and they handcuffed Young. Young was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was released after posting a $12,000 bond. - Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

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AMARILLO - Security will be increased and troublemakers banned at some downtown bars and restaurants as part of an effort to curb recent violence on Polk Street, management said Thursday.

The pledges followed a meeting a day earlier between the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and the owners of seven alcohol establishments located either on Polk or nearby.

A fatal officer-involved shooting Jan. 30, brawls and a spike in nighttime police calls sparked a TABC investigation and raised questions about how to make downtown safer. Millions of dollars have been invested on Polk as part of the city's downtown revitalization push.

Nowhere else in Amarillo are the bars as tightly packed as they are on Polk: Nine alcohol establishments are located in the street's 700 and 800 blocks and a 10th bar stands nearby.

Bar owners are working to start a program that will let nearby establishments know when someone has been barred from a club. - Amarillo Globe-News

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LUBBOCK - Public access to an audit purported to show roughly $9 million in misspent taxpayer money rests in the hands of a Dallas judge and the state attorney general.

In a court hearing Thursday, a former city employee health benefits provider called the audit wildly misleading.

Attorneys representing HealthSmart, the current name of Lubbock's insurance administrator from 2004-06, pressed Dallas County Court-at-Law Judge T. King Fifer to seal the document, backing away from an earlier request in writing asking the judge to order the audit destroyed.

It was "ludicrous" the city had continued to work on such an audit four months after both sides settled a lawsuit on the matter in the same court, Ray Hutchison told the judge. The document couldn't have been prepared without confidential information protected by an earlier order by Fifer, he said.

Draft documents - the status of the audit at the time - under that order were to be returned or destroyed by Dec. 3 last year. The city instead kept using the documents to produce an audit, circumventing orders keeping the information confidential.

The Avalanche-Journal and other media outlets have requested copies of the audit. Some say the company wants to hide evidence of kickbacks and stolen funds that shouldn't be hidden from the public.

Each side claims the other crafted a conspiracy to defraud Lubbock taxpayers. - Lubbock Avalanche-Journal